Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a 2001 computer-animated film, based on a few five-minute animated shorts shown on Nickelodeon in 2000-2001, The television series was supposed to begin before the release of the movie, but since there was not enough time, the animated shorts were created. It was produced by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies with O Entertainment. The film was produced using off-the-shelf software (messiah:studio and LightWave 6) by DNA Productions of Dallas, Texas. A spin-off TV series The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, premiered September 6, 2002 only on Nickelodeon. This marked the first Nicktoon to be spun-off from a movie. Plot The movie begins at an Air Force base somewhere in Colorado. Their radar picks up a UFO and they send planes up to examine the situation. The pilots are surprised to find that it is a rocket carrying two boys and a robotic dog: Jimmy Neutron (Debi Derryberry), Carl Wheezer (Rob Paulsen), and Goddard (Frank Welker). Jimmy needs to launch a communications satellite (which he made out of a toaster) to communicate with an alien species who sent him a message that was garbled in the ionosphere. Unfortunately, the pulse rockets fail, and the rocket cannot leave the atmosphere. Jimmy tapes some soda to the toaster and throws it, propelling the soda into space. Then the rocket falls down to town and lands on his roof. He is reprimanded by his parents (Megan Cavanagh and Mark DeCarlo), gets ready for school, but his antics caused him to miss the bus. He then tests his latest invention, a form of bubble transportation, made from a special bubble gum. He catches up with the school bus, but the bubble pops when it hits a tree. In the classroom, Cindy Vortex (Carolyn Lawrence), Jimmy's arch rival, is giving a report on dinosaurs. Jimmy proceeds to correct her with technical data and they argue. During show and tell, Jimmy shows Ms. Fowl (Andrea Martin) and the class a shrink ray. He attempts to shrink Cindy's head, but the ray malfunctions and does not work. When walking home, Jimmy, Carl, and their friend Sheen Estevez (Jeff Garcia) spot a poster for an amusement park. However, their parents will not let them go, so they sneak out. By now, the shrink ray is working again, so Nick Dean also had the Golden Rule. Meanwhile, the toaster is found by an alien race called the Yolkians. They seem to be a green goo (or yolk, possibly) with eye stalks. They use pods with hovering capability and robotic arms to move, but they fly spaceships in space (that look like chickens). King Goobot (Patrick Stewart) and his assistant, Ooblar (Martin Short), watch the message, Then, all the ships in the armada head to Earth. They take all the parents in the city and leave, putting obviously fake notes on the refrigerators to tell the kids they've gone to Florida for a 'vacation'. On the way home, Carl spots a shooting star, so he, Jimmy, and Sheen wish for no more parents so they could have fun all the time. The next morning, Jimmy spots the Note set and reads it. The notes are the same for everyone, so Jimmy has Goddard scan for adult life forms. When the report comes back (none within radar range), the kids celebrating and doing things they couldn't do normally. The next morning, the craze has worn off, and at home, Jimmy is upset that his parents didn't say goodbye. Jimmy goes to his lab and compares the note the Yolkians left with notes his parents wrote. When the writing doesn't compare, Jimmy realizes that the notes are fake. Goddard finds evidence of aliens on the computer, and Jimmy tracks them to another system. He organizes the other kids in town to build rockets from the theme park rides to travel there. While staying on an asteroid, everyone recalls what their parents did at bedtime before they were abducted by aliens. The next day, they reach the planet Yolkus (a spoof of courage from Esther) are captured by Goobot. He says the parents are to be sacrificed to their god, Poultra. They're taken to the dungeon, but Ooblar takes Goddard to his workshop to take him apart after Goddard assaults Goobot. Jimmy calls Goddard on Libby's cell phone and tricks Ooblar into thinking Goddard will self-destruct in an explosion covering 30 square miles. Goddard frees the kids using a glitch in his obedience program (when told to play dead, he detonates in a small explosion, which blows down the door), and they make it to the arena were the parents will be sacrificed to Poultra. When they reach it, an unusual ceremony is finishing (with mind-control devices, the parents do the chicken dance!), and Poultra, a gigantic three-eyed chicken with reptilian legs, hatching from her egg. Jimmy quickly comes up with a plan: Sheen heads to an airfield to obtain a transport, he gets the mind controller, and the rest of the kids keep the guards busy. They escape, but Goobot follows them in his ship at the head of the Yolkus fleet. He orders the ships to open fire.During the battle, Jimmy skims the surface of Yolkus's sun, and flares destroy all but Goobot's ship. The king sends a taunting message to Jimmy, who flies out with Goddard. He uses his shrink ray to make himself the size of a planet, and blows the ship into an oncoming asteroid. Goobot vows he'll be back. The kids are reunited with their parents, and they make it home without further incident. Reception Box Office The film was financially successful, bringing in $13,832,786 on its opening weekend for an average of $4,407 from 3,139 theaters, and ended up with a total of $80,865,848 domestically. It had a budget of roughly $25 million. Critical Response Reviews were generally favorable. It currently holds a 75% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a rating of 65 (meaning generally favorable reviews) on Meta Critic. Awards Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius was nominated for the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, making it the first film produced by Nickelodeon Movies ever to receive an Academy Award nomination. Voice Cast * Debi Derryberry - Jimmy Neutron * Rob Paulsen - Carl Wheezer * Carolyn Lawrence - Cindy Vortex * Patrick Stewart - King Goobot * Frank Welker - Goddard * Martin Short - Ooblar * Candi Milo - Nick Dean * Jeff Garcia - Sheen Estevez * Megan Cavanagh - Mrs. Judy Neutron * Mark DeCarlo - Mr. Hugh Neutron * Crystal Scales - Libby Folfax * Andrea Martin - Ms. Winfred Fowl * Billy West - various characters * Tom Kenny - various characters Crew * John A. Davis - Director/Producer/Writer * Steve Oedekerk - Writer * David N. Weiss - Writer * Ray Chase - Character animator Soundtrack album track listing # Leave it Up to Me - Aaron Carter (2:59) # Pop (Deep Dish Cha-Ching Remix) - *NSync (4:13) # Parents Just Don't Understand (Teddy Riley Mix) - Lil' Romeo, 3LW & Nick Cannon (3:55) # Intimidated - Britney Spears (3:17) # He Blinded Me with Science - Melissa Lefton (3:15) # A.C.'s Alien Nation - Aaron Carter (3:23) # Kids in America - No Secrets (3:06) # The Answer to Our Life - Backstreet Boys (3:17) # The Chicken Dance - Stupid (1:32) # I Can Count on You - True Vibe (3:46) # We Got the Beat - The Go-Go's (2:31) # Go Jimmy Jimmy - Aaron Carter (2:38) # Parents Just Don't Understand (Bonus Mix) - 3LW, Nick Cannon & Lil' Romeo (3:52) # Blitzkrieg Bop - The Ramones (2:12) # Jimmy Neutron Theme Song - Bowling for Soup (2:08) # Opening Titles/Jimmy Neturon Walked to School (2:05) # Jimmy's Lab/The Yolkans' ship (2:06) # Cindy's room/Welcome to Retroland (2:07) # Jimmy's Kicthen/No parents (2:08) # Building Ships/Sleepover (2:09) # eGYPT/The Ship (2:10) # Breakfast/End Titles (2:11) Cultural references * In an early sequence, Jimmy rides his jetpack past a train labeled MJ12, coinciding with the extraterrestrial theme. * When Jimmy crash lands on his house in the beginning of the movie, three birds flying in a V-shaped pattern can be seen in the sky, several times. This may coincide with the extraterrestrial photographs taken by Billy Meier that featured three UFO's flying over a valley. This can also be observed in several of the TV episodes. * In the beginning of the message Jimmy sends to the aliens, he salutes them using the Vulcan salute. * When Sheen takes the Ultra Lord oath in the amusement park, his right hand is doing the Vulcan salute. * The Egyptian-style ride "Show me the Mummy" is a parody of Jerry Maguire's catch-phrase "Show me the money". * One of the rides has a scared kid's face with eyes wide open and his hands on his cheeks. That's the famous pose of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. (Which itself is a parody of the Edvard Munch painting The Scream) * The alien's YT program is a parody of ET. * During the scene when the kids are camping on the asteroid, Nick's story is from the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project * Look closely when Hugh Neutron is "channel surfing" on his TV set, the movie open for Nick, called "Rhino", is seen, alongside one ident and the "ping-ping-ping" sound of Nick's sister channel TV Land. * One ride in Retroland that is made into a spacecraft is called "Bat Outta Heck", an obvious reference to Meat Loaf's song and album, Bat out of Hell. * In the scene where all of the kids are in space and camping on an asteroid, they are able to survive despite having no protection against the freezing cold, lack of air pressure or oxygen. Their space ships aren't even sealed and most expose the children's bodies. Curiously, in the series that spawned from the movie, in the episode "The Junkman", while on a trip to the moon, Sheen asks Jimmy about this, and Jimmy answers him, but his explanation goes unheard, as Carl's loud and terrible singing drowns it out. * When the Yolkian planet is viewed from space, it seems to be based on Coruscant. * The Yolkian Ooblar's name is perhaps a nod to The War of The Worlds where the martian's battlecry is 'Ulla' - pronounced Oolaa. * During the chase through space Liby is the Communications Officer, a possible reference to Lt. Uhura in Star Trek: The Original Series, as both Liby and Uhura are black females. Other * The film currently has a 75% "Certified Fresh" rating on RottenTomatoes.com * When Jimmy did the radar search for adults it said there were no adults found but in a few scenes later they showed Ms. Fow,which may be because of Jimmy accidentally shrinking her early and her being to small for the radar to pick up. * Another poster of this movie had Jimmy & Goddard on the front, looking through a hole from metal that they had blasted through. Next to the hole are the words I can fix that... and under the hole is the words Blasting into theaters this Christmas. * Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius was nominated for Best Animated Feature in 2001. It lost to the Dreamworks blockbuster, Shrek. * The plot was based upon a failed Jimmy Neutron show pilot, Runaway Rocketboy, While most of the footage from the failed pilot was used on the original teaser trailer, but in the end Nickolodeon finally accepted to create to television series, which turned out to be a hit, turning into Nick's third highest rated show. * Retroville's paper updates incredibly fast. The headline of the day of the satellite launch was that a UFO (Jimmy and Carl) had been spotted over the town. Of course, the boys could have done it before, seeing as there was no Goddard in the photo. * There are ceramics that look like chickens, the shape of the ships and the god of the Yolkians. These are seen at the last scene of the movie. * The entire film was done with over the counter CGI software * Some of the scenes from the movie can be seen during the opening sequence of the TV series during the first season. * When Carl Jimmy and Sheen are reading from the flyer, Carl mentions "Llamas and Capybaras", hinting at an obsession with capybaras, not just llamas. * The song Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones appears in the movie. However, the line "Shoot 'em in the back, now" is removed. * Unlike in the show, Cindy's shirt is a pink blouse, her hair is in two pigtails and she wears black pants. On the show, her shirt is a green striped halter, her hair has one ponytail, and her pants are beige. The same goes for her friend Libby, who had one ponytail and a green dress in the movie, but had a tropical-style hairdo and a pink tank top in the tv series. This happened after an episode where Jimmy and his friends redo Libby's hair to stop the mummies. * Jimmy's name is believed to be originated from the scientist James Chadwick who discovered the Neutron. His full name, James Isaac Neutron, is also a reference to famous scientist Isaac Newton. * This is the second film Patrick Stewart and Martin Short appeared in. Their first film together was the 1998 film The Prince of Egypt. * This is also the only time we see Jimmy wear shorts, and Jimmy's voice is a lot deeper in the series presumably because a year had passed. *There was going to be a sequel to this movie. It was called Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius 2- Search for Carl. Apparently it was canceled. Genius, Sheenius or Inbetweenius An event that aired on May 19, 2007, Nickelodeon took the opportunity to rehire the original voice actors of Jimmy, Sheen and Carl to return for a special audio commentary version of the film in which their animated counterparts' silhouettes spoofing Mystery Science Theater 3000. See also * The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron * Nickelodeon Movies